Nancy Dell'Olio, the star of Strictly Come Dancing, misses meeting with Prince
Michael of Kent because of late rehearsals.

Nancy Dell'Olio is currently competing in Strictly Come Dancing.Photo: Rex Features

Tim Walker. Edited by Richard Eden

7:28AM BST 22 Oct 2011

So determined is Nancy Dell’Olio to avoid being voted off Strictly Come Dancing that she arrived late for a party at which she was due to meet a member of the Royal family.

The Italian former girlfriend of Sven-Göran Eriksson and Sir Trevor Nunn attended a soirée at the Chelsea home of Richard and Basia Briggs, the owners of Hyde Park Stables, but her rehearsals went on so late that Prince Michael of Kent had left by the time she arrived.

“I wanted to meet him, but the BBC, they work you like slaves,” she tells Mandrake. “I’m sure the Prince watches Strictly.”

Gaddafi’s court

As we wait to hear whether Tony Blair will give the euology at Col Muammar Gaddafi’s funeral, what of the other prominent figures who courted his family?

Lord Rothschild and his son Nat entertained Gaddafi’s son and presumed heir Saif at their villa in Corfu. Asked whether the Rothschilds are embarrassed by their courtship, Nicky Haslam, who was a fellow guest, tells Mandrake: “They bloody well should be.”

Haslam, a friend of the Duchess of Cornwall, declines to discuss exactly what went on between Lord Mandelson, who was also at the villa, and Saif, that fateful summer of 2009.

A week later, it was announced that the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, would be released from prison in Scotland on “compassionate grounds”.

Children are kings

Having grown up at Blenheim Palace, Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill was never constrained by space. Now an interior designer, the Duke of Marlborough’s daughter is surprised at where children sleep these days.

“In my childhood, people would put the children’s bedrooms on the top floor, and the guest bedrooms were given all the attention,” she says. “Now, the children get all the best bedrooms.”

Elephant forgets

Who says Ed Miliband is a policy-free zone? At the launch of the Stephen Lawrence 18:18 Gala at London Zoo, a reporter asked the Labour leader what his favourite animal was.

“I don’t really want to say,” he replied. “My brother and I did used to like the elephants.”